1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method for converting input image data to output image data by applying image processing to the input image data. More specifically, the invention relates to an image processing method for preparing an output image meeting a request from an individual customer; an image processing method for additionally displaying information corresponding to a feeling of a person on an image displaying medium or the like on which an image of the person is displayed, or performing substitution, modification or adjustment to produce an image corresponding to the feeling; and an image processing method for changing an image of a person to a favorite image of the person or an image having no unnatural feeling.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, printing of an image photographed on a photographic film (hereinafter referred to as a film) such as a negative film or a reversal film to a photosensitive material (printing paper) has been performed by so-called direct exposure. With the direct exposure, the image on the film is projected on the photosensitive material and the surface of the photosensitive material is exposed to light.
On the other hand, in recent years, a printing apparatus that utilizes digital exposure, that is, a digital photoprinter, has been put to practical use. The digital photoprinter photoelectrically reads an image recorded on a film, converts the read image to a digital signal, then converts the digital signal to image data for recording by applying various kinds of image processing, and records an image (latent image) by scanning and exposing a photosensitive material by recording light that is modulated according to the image data to have a print (photograph).
The digital photoprinter can convert an image into digital image data and determine exposure conditions at the time of printing the image by image data processing. Thus, various kinds of image processing can be performed with a high degree of freedom, which is difficult or impossible with the conventional direct exposure, including correction of dropouts or blocked-ups of an image due to back-light, strobe photographing or the like, correction of a color failure or a density failure, correction of under exposure or over exposure, correction of insufficient marginal luminosity, sharpness processing, and compression/expansion processing of density dynamic range (giving a dodging effect by image data processing). Therefore, an extremely high-grade print can be obtained compared with the direct exposure. Moreover, since composition and division of a plurality of images, composition of characters or the like can be performed by the image data processing, a print that is freely edited and/or processed depending on an application can be outputted.
In addition, since the digital photoprinter not only can output an image as a print but also can supply image data to a computer or the like or can store image data in a recording medium such as a floppy disk, the image data can be utilized for various applications other than a photograph.
In this way, with the digital photoprinter, it is possible to apply image processing with a higher degree of freedom to an image by the image data processing and to output a print with higher commodity value. Incidentally, it is preferable that an image to be reproduced as a print is an image on which a request of a customer (a person who requests preparation of a print) is reflected as much as possible. In this regard, the applicant has proposed an image processing method of reproducing a finished image that preferably corresponds to a request of a customer in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 11-331570.
That is, the method is to obtain a reproduced image preferably corresponding to a request of a customer by getting information on the customer relating to image data supplied from an image supplying source, setting image processing conditions according to the information on the customer, and performing image processing based on the image processing conditions.
In the laid-open patent application, information on a customer refers to an occupation of a customer, a sex of a customer, an age of a customer or the like. In addition, a method of obtaining information on a customer is exemplified by a method with which information on a customer is verbally obtained from the customer when an order of a print is received from the customer, which is communicated to an operator who inputs the information using an operating device such as a mouse, a method with which customer information is written in a customer card and an operator inputs the customer information referring to the customer card when preparing a print, or a method with which customer information is arranged as a database and an operator obtains the customer information from the database.
In addition, image processing that preferably corresponds to a request of a customer is exemplified by the following processing. In a case in which a film is a reversal film and an occupation is a professional photographer, an image photographed on the film is to be reproduced faithfully, and in a case in which an occupation is not a professional photographer, a photographing failure such as over exposure, under exposure and back-light is remedied by adjusting a color and a density of an image normally. In addition, in a case of a male, a face region is extracted and sharpness is given rather strongly to make gradation prominent and show details, and in a case of a female, a face region is extracted and sharpness is given rather weakly or soft focusing is applied extremely weakly to make gradation less prominent (soft) and to make live spots, wrinkles, freckles or the like less outstanding.
However, the conventional image processing method has a problem in that processing is complicated because an operator must input information on a customer. In addition, there is also a problem in that image processing conditions to be set are fixed according to obtained information on a customer, or selection of conditions is limited only to whether the processing is performed or not, and there is no function of setting image processing conditions corresponding to preference of a customer or, more meticulously, of each subject person, thus, image reproduction to which preference of a customer or a subject person is truly reflected cannot be realized.
As image forming media, there are conventionally a photograph (print) that reproduces a still image and a movie (a film projector and a screen) that reproduces images as an animation. Since the development of a cathode-ray tube (CRT), in recent years, television sets (TVs) have been spread to all the households. Moreover, with remarkable advances of technologies, various image display devices such as a liquid crystal display, a plasma display and an electronic paper have been developed as image forming media.
Recently, image forming devices have been developed such as a video camera, a digital camera, a digital video movie camera, and a cellular TV telephone, which can capture voices together with images utilizing the above-mentioned image forming media.
However, although the above-mentioned conventional image forming devices can photograph images and, at the same time, record voices, the captured voice data is simply reproduced as sounds directly. In addition, there is also a problem in that the conventional image forming devices aim principally at reproducing an image as faithfully as possible as it is photographed, and an entertaining aspect of an image is not taken into account at all.
Further, in the present digital image processing technology, it is possible to adjust density or color tone of an image photographed and captured as digital image data, and image processing such as correction of the photographed image per se and composition or substitution with other images is also possible. Various digital image processing techniques have been thus proposed which include digital image processing technique conventionally performed in the field of photograph for correcting or adjusting a face of a person or a line of sight.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-151985 discloses a technique in which portions of an image of a face of a person and adjustment parameters are set to correct the image to have a made-up face. Ordinary people are not however familiar with adjustment of color tone or gradation, which is difficult processing for amateurs and in particular rather difficult for a user unfamiliar with a personal computer (hereinafter also referred to as “PC”). In some cases, good adjustment results cannot be obtained, and there is also a problem in that images very often have unnatural feeling after adjustment.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-205030 discloses a technique in which an image of eyes in a full-faced state is prepared from a three-dimensional model of an image of a face of a person by computer graphics (hereinafter referred to as “CG”) technology. There is however a problem in that unnatural feeling remains on the image of eyes prepared by the CG technology. There is also a problem in that arithmetic computations enormously increase in quantity because of the preparation from the three-dimensional model depending on the CG technology.
On the other hand, among the digital image processing mentioned above, simple image processing can be performed with a personal computer, and to this end, various types of image processing software programs are commercially available. Nevertheless, the simple image processing by using these image processing software programs that are commercially available cannot provide a sufficient accuracy to finish an image of a face of a person so as to have a favorite face or to finish the image in a full-faced state by making a line of sight coincident with a photographing direction. There is also a problem in that the operation is difficult for amateurs.